After Hours
by princessrainbowflower
Summary: Dean is a lifeguard at a local public pool, Castiel is a guy who comes every afternoon to swim his laps and crash Dean's alone time. A story of a friendship that grows, but also might have been inevitable. AU, Human!Cas, Lifeguard!Dean Might get kind of romantic, but focused more on how the bond of friendship and the trust that comes with it.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or either of the songs that I mention in this story, "Sweet Child o Mine" or "Drift Away", I just heard them at work and thought I could use them in this story._

_There are no actual warnings for this. It's AU (i know, its not me), but i just needed to write it. Destiel/DeanCas, but not romantically i dont think. Family issues._

_enjoy. I might touch it up later._

* * *

Dean is a lifeguard at the local public pool. Actually, scratch that, the more accurate way to describe dean is "THE Lifeguard". He was the Head Guard, it was kind of intimidating actually. He was in charge of all the younger guards, always watching them and calling them out when they were messing around on duty. It's not like he was a real dick or anything, he wanted the younger guards to be better at their job- it's not Dean's fault he could come off as a little scary at times.

It also didn't help that Dean was literally the exact image of what you think a hunky lifeguard should look like. His body was chiseled to perfection, hair short and kind of blonde-ish, mysterious enough that no one really approached him, but all eyes in the pool were pointed in his direction.

He was always the last one to leave the pool. It closed at 7 every night and since Dean was the head guard, he usually had the last shift. It worked out nicely for him, because even though closing up and cleaning the whole area was a pain, believe it or not, no one actually stayed until 7, and every afternoon, Dean would have his 15 minutes of alone time in the pool. He liked the dive tank in particular. It was attached to the rest of the pool, but this is where the floor felt like it was miles under his feet. Dean wasn't an Olympic diver or anything, but he was absolutely fearless when it came to the high dive. He jumped off the highest board with a spring that sent him flying upwards before tumbling down for a full four and a half seconds of falling into the cold water. As long as he broke the water tension with something other than his face, he considered it to be a smooth landing.

Today, in particular, Dean needed his 15 minutes. His home life was stressful, his friends were being assholes again, and he had to deal with a full day of work. You'd be surprised with the things a lifeguard hears during the day- noisy brats who don't know how good they have it, complaining to their parents while waving around their expensive cell phones and what-not. Racist old men, racist young men, parents not paying attention to their infants teetering on the edge of the pool, kids who don't understand the concept of _not running around the pool_, five scraped knees, one incident in the diving area with one kid jumping on another one… the list was endless.

Thirty minutes to seven the last guard clocked out- leaving Dean to his pool, finally _finally_ alone. If you don't count the single guy still swimming his laps.

Dean waved a kickboard in front of the lane where the guy was swimming and stopped at the wall and looked up at Dean.

"Yo man, I'm packing up," Dean said, standing up from his crouching position. The guy looked like he was about Dean's age, dark hair, goggles pushed up to his hair line, and the stupid goggle rings around his ridiculously blue eyes from where they had been too tight.

"Come on, I only have 10 laps left- anyway, the pool closes at seven I thought?" the guy said, squinting to look past Dean at the clock on the wall that read 6:35.

Dean looked back at the clock, knowing that the hands had still not moved from the position they were in since the last time he looked… 20 seconds ago. The final stretch is always the hardest part of the day.

With a sigh, Dean looked back down at the swimmer, "Okay, but you can obviously swim- can I trust you not to drown while I finish clean up?"

"I wasn't planning on it," he said with a smirk, putting his goggles back on over his eyes and pushing off the wall.

Dean put away the rescue tubes and the rest of the equipment before heading back to where the guy was still swimming in lane three.

"Hey man, what's your name anyway?" Dean said loudly, hoping that the other guy could hear him as he swam.

"Cas – tiel" he said between strokes, not stopping to spare the time to say the name in full. He stopped at the wall where Dean was once again standing with his hands on his hips and ripped his goggles off his face and splashed it with water. Dean raised his eyebrows at Castiel.

"Like the angel?"

Castiel nodded while giving him the quick explanation, "parents were religious; born on a Thursday; yaddah yaddah." Still had that stupid smirk on his face, showing the corner of his teeth, "you?"

Dean chuckled, "Dean. Well Cas, I-"

"Cas_tiel_" he was quick to correct the lifeguard with a completely serious face this time.

"If you can't say it with one stroke, then it's too long," Dean disagreed with this stranger about his own name. "Anyway," he continued before Cas could cut in again, "you don't mind if I put on some music, do you? I usually just blast something and hang out on the diving boards until 7."

"Sure, I don't mind," Castiel said, but Dean was already walking over to the radio, yelling "any requests?" behind him to Cas as he flipped on some random station, Castiel laughed at him and ducked back under the water.

Four minutes later, Dean was climbing the ladder to the high dive and Castiel was still sitting in his lane, curious.

Dean ran from the end of the board, took a big leap and flailed in the air until he hit the water. Cas saw him land from his underwater view. Dean didn't see Castiel watching him as he twirled, suspended in the cool water, finally at peace, washing off all the stresses of the day. When he came up for air, Cas was sitting on the side of the pool running a towel over his hair. "Well that was graceful" he said in a strong voice so Dean could hear him from the other end of the pool.

Dean just made a face that paralleled that of a teenage girl's pout and walked his way back to the ladder shaking his ass dramatically. This made Castiel throw his head back in laughter and clap his hands together. "You wanna see grace, angel-boy?" Dean yelled back to where Cas was walking towards Dean and the dive tank. Soon Cas was standing there with his towel wrapped around him looking up high above at Dean on the board. "The idea," Dean yells down, "is to jump to the music!" He does some ridiculous moves while mouthing the words to _Sweet Child of Mine_ as they echoed off the water of the pool. "Woah, Oh oh, sweet child of miiiinee" he sings, jumping on the last note and actually managing to do a flip and a half on the way down.

Castiel applauded sarcastically with that grin plastered back on his face when Dean popped up for air. "well then?" Dean said as he swam over to the wall where Cas was standing, "lets see you try."

"Oh no no, I don't dive, I just swim. No jumping for me thanks, I'll pass."

"Oh wow," Dean pulled himself out of the pool as the water dripped off his chiseled chest, "an _angel_ afraid to _fly_, now that's what I call ironic…"

"I'm not really an angel you know." Castiel responded, stubbornly.

"Clearly, because an angel wouldn't be afraid of a silly high dive. Come on, it's not too bad." Cas was still backing away and shaking his head, "ya know what, I'll start you off small," he said, motioning to the lowest diving board. Finally, Castiel let himself be persuaded to climb onto the small board and Dean tried not to laugh at how uneasy and off balance the swimmer looked, "Come on, Cas, it's not going to hurt you. I mean, you don't start your races in the water, do you?"

"No, I start them half kneeling down on a block that _doesn't bounce_" he snapped back at Dean. It was new to both of them to trust so easily- this was only the first day they had met, after all.

In the background, "Sweet Child of Mine" was fading out and right into the next song.

_Day after day I'm more confused_

_Yet I look for the light through the pouring rain…_

"Oh, this is a good song," Dean said, closing his eyes and singing along with the radio while dancing as if there wasn't another person there with him. For some reason, it was just really easy to drop the façade around Cas, and just be what he wanted to be. Or maybe he was just tired of being on-edge all day- or whatever.

Cas turned to look at him with his head tilted slightly to the side, "What song is this?"

Dean didn't answer, he just kept singing and swinging his hips to the rhythm. By the time Dean and the radio had reached the chorus, Castiel was up to speed, and mouthed the words along with Dean who was singing at the top of his lungs,

_Oh gimme the beat boys and free my soul,_

_I wanna get lost in your rock and roll,_

_And drift away_

So he didn't really process when Dean stepped up and joined him on the board, taking small but sure steps toward where Castiel was wobbling. "Nono, Dean-" Cas tried to plead, but Dean was already approaching, and quickly.

"You need to _free your soul_, Cas, just listen to the words!" He said in mock inspiration, still shaking his hips to the music.

Dean jumped high, causing Castiel to lose balance at the edge of the diving board. He threw out his hands to steady himself, and right before he fell backwards into the cold water, Dean caught Castiel's flailing arm and pulled him back to his feet.

The radio droned on in the background.

_Beginnin' to think I'm wastin'time,_

_I don't understand the things I do_

_The world outside looks so unkind,_

_And I'm counting on you,_

_You can carry me through._

Dean ended up pushing Cas in anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

This became ritual. Slowly, but surely, it was a known fact that Castiel would come and swim his laps at the end of the day, by 6:30, he and Dean would be the only two left in the pool. During that time, Dean would put on some old rock music and show Cas some tricks to jumping off the diving boards. The highest Cas would go was the medium board, but he was definitely more confident. Both boys felt more at ease here than anywhere else in their current lives, though neither of them had told the other.

Actually, Castiel didn't know much about Dean- or Dean about Cas. But that didn't get in the way of their unspoken-yet-semi-official diving lessons slash hanging out time. Both of them were maybe starting to realize that having another person around might not be a bad thing.

Cas came to the pool to be alone, actually. Dean didn't know this, but he would soon. Three and a half weeks into their unspoken friendship, Castiel didn't show up to the pool. Twice.

For three and a half weeks, Cas was there every day, stayed late every day, laughed and sang and jumped off of diving boards every day, said "see you tomorrow" instead of 'goodbye'. _Every day._

And then he didn't show. Dean didn't let himself worry; they had never exchanged numbers or anything, something probably just came up, he would ask Cas about it the next day.

And when he didn't show up the next day, Dean thought, _maybe tomorrow_, and tried not to worry.

* * *

On the third day, Castiel walked into the pool area while Dean was sitting on the stand, claimed his lane and dove off the wall without even glancing his friend.

This was the first day that Dean pulled the backboard off the wall, and instead of putting it away, plopped it into the pool right next to Castiel's lane. Cas was still swimming laps; Dean waited patiently and figured that he had to surface eventually.

When he did, Dean saw plain as day why he hadn't looked at him all day.

Dean didn't know if it was the completely wrecked expression on Castiel's face or the bruise just under his right eye that surprised Dean the most. It was probably a combination of the two. But despite being the intimidating head guard that everyone at the pool, with the exception of Cas, had known him to be- Dean was remarkably good with people.

Clearly, Cas didn't want to talk. So instead of pestering him, Dean gave him a sad smile and patted the backboard, inviting his friend to sit.

Castiel put his elbows onto the board, and laid his head down in his arms while Dean pulled him out to the deep end of the pool with Cas holding onto the other side.

The two of them drifted in the empty pool hanging off of opposite ends of the board in silence for a long time. Cas didn't look up until he started speaking.

Dean learned that Castiel's mother was long dead, and his father had recently gone missing. He was left alone in the house with all of his older brothers and his one sister. He was the baby of the family and was kind of always on his own. Cas told him that his one brother, Raphael, wanted to take custody of the younger kids. There were four younger than Raphael, and two older, but they weren't going to step up. Cas didn't think Raphael was prepared for that job. Apparently there was a lot of screaming before Raphael shut him up with a fist to Castiel's eye.

Cas learned that Dean's life wasn't exactly all hot dates and late nights. Well late nights, but not so much for girls, more like late nights working two jobs to help keep food on the table for him and his little brother while their dad went out.

It was kind of weird actually- Dean and Cas were both kind of inward kids. Dean had plenty of friends, but he kept all of them at arms-length. Dean even kept his little brother, who he basically _raised_, somewhat in the dark. But here was this guy. Nothing special about him, just a guy who used to be a stranger, another swimmer in the pool. And yet, Dean felt compelled to sit and listen, to _share_. It felt _good_ and _important_.

It felt oddly _right_. Dean didn't believe in fate or destiny for shit. But he _did_ watch a lot of sci-fi TV. He thought, as the two boys drifted in the deep end, that maybe in every timeline, he and Cas were here- still friends. It just felt like it was… inevitable.

Cas, however, believed that everything happened for a reason. So if that meant his brother had to beat the shit out of him for Dean and him to spend time talking and actually getting to know each other- so be it. As the conversation turned lighter, and they started smirking and laughing again, Castiel begins to believe that it was worth it.

The next day, Cas jumped from the high dive.


End file.
